Diocesan
Life Columns
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Bishop Paul's writes a monthly column for the Diocesan Newspaper, Diocesan
Life, edited by Communication
Minister, Bill Lewellis.
For more features from the life of our diocese, check Diocesanlife....ONLINE; and Bethlehem
News.
Everybody is called,
everybody is sent,
everybody can be nourished along the way
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Diocesan Life, January 2006
In a very few days the camels will come across our living room
and make it to the manger. January 6 is Epiphany, and in our house
we will toast the three who made a perilous journey in hope. Their
foreignness serves a point: “nations shall come to thy light,
and kings to the brightness of thy shining.” All people are
called from darkness to light, all are welcome in Bethlehem.
With the exception of those few Christians whose ancestors were
Jews, the magi represent us as the latecomers at the manger.
That may be a surprise. We have become so used to thinking of
ourselves (rightly) as God’s people, “a royal priesthood,” as
St. Peter puts it, that we forget his first line: “you
who were no people have been made a people.”
Epiphany is first and foremost the celebration of the fact that
Jesus came for all the world, and that he welcomes each of us,
all we bring, and all we are.
Why should we remember the outsiders today? On Epiphany we all
are reminded, young and old, that there is a great deal in our
culture that can make you feel like an outsider, make you feel
like you don’t amount to much, cannot contribute much.
It happens at school, work, and sometimes even at home. Feeling
too old, too young, not respected, not useful – those are
addressed by the Jesus who says “come to me… and
I will give you rest.”
This is the first message of Epiphany: No matter what the world
may say about you or to you, you are welcomed by the Christ child,
a fellow heir with the saints. Nobody can take that away from
you.
Epiphany has another meaning. That is the idea of following a
star, of being on a journey. It has almost reached the status
of cliché, but it is true nonetheless, that to lay your
eyes on Christ means to set out on a journey.
Young or old, rich or poor, whoever each of us may be, to let
God into our lives means that they are never the same again.
It means that we grow and change each day as we listen for the
voice of the Spirit in our lives, as we seek to be Christ’s
person right there in the life we live, with the same family,
work, church, and community.
It may look like home, but it’s a new destination each
day.
So I hear challenges for myself when I hear the story of the
magi. Those challenges go something like this: Look for a star
to follow. Look for a goal in life bigger than survival. Realize
how much good you can do, how much of a person you can be for
those around you. Dare to believe that you can have a real and
growing relationship with God. Be on that journey.
Being on a journey, however, has its good and bad points. The
idea of always being on the road, always discovering the new,
is exciting, sure, but it’s also tiring.
We traditionally depict the magi riding on camels: there is probably
no more ill-tempered and uncomfortable beast of burden than a
camel, but they were useful because they were equipped for long
journeys, and people put up with them.
Finally, if you are like me, you would like to know as much as
possible about where you are going, you would like to avoid making
wrong turns – but without the indignity of stopping to
ask for directions. That is, the sense of adventure has a flip
side: a sense of rootlessness, of disorientation.
For some or all of these reasons, it is possible to believe in
Christ, but hold back from letting God into much of our everyday
lives.
No matter what we may think about the value of the “institutional
church,” community in Christ is important for the journey.
The journey can be hard so we rejoice to come to the oasis, the
gathering of God’s people in the church.
A real oasis is more than a filling station or a pit stop. The
oasis was a place of safety, of refreshment, of sharing stories
with other travelers, of trading tips and warnings about the
hazards or changes in the trail.
That’s why it is important for those who take their spiritual
journey seriously to stay connected with the community that gathers
around word and sacrament. The odds are against our surviving
the trip unless we regularly come to where we are welcomed, refreshed,
reminded of the directions, and just plain encouraged to keep
at it.
Epiphany has a lovely complex of ideas: everybody is called,
everybody is sent, and everybody can be nourished along the way.
It is our annual invitation to saddle up and risk the journey
because we know who awaits us at its end.
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